Salt Water Burns
by J. Charelle
Summary: "The waves etch out a pattern long after they're gone. The lines that they trace, they quickly erase, but something's still lingering on." The Anderson-Hummels have a lot to live up to...and move past. Rated M for potentially dicey subjects. First of an 11-fic anthology ? I'm calling the "Out of Our Heads" series, shamelessly borrowed from the album by composers Kooman and Dimon


**Wherein Jess is really fucking sorry about this idea, but secretly hopes she does unto others what lots of others have done unto her with their fics.**

**TW for eventual character death, childhood trauma, possibly some mental abuse. If you're easily bothered by that, shoot me a PM or an ask or something (tumblr URL lightningcolfer) and I can give you a general idea of what happens so you can decide if this is worth your while. That or you can go to youtube and stick this: /watch?v=F3G59tZJzBw on the end of that URL to get an idea of where this is headed, since this is the song that prompted the fic.**

**Further warnings that updates on this are going to be **_**slow.**_** Damn near glacial, at least until I hit the home stretch on my main WIP. **

**Assume canon-compliance to the end of season three, even if nothing is mentioned. **

***Saturday, 10 May 2053***

The early morning waves looked as innocent as they always did, rolling gently across the sand and leaving pockets of sea foam to dry until they were carried away by the tide. It was a rare moment of quiet on the beach; early enough in the summer that tourists hadn't begun venturing south on sun-filled vacations, early enough in the day that any self-respecting Floridian was still abed.

But Toronto Anderson-Hummel was no Floridian. Well, maybe by relocation. But he had grown up in New York with his fathers and sister, way back before he got the scholarship to UCF, back before he decided to major in Biology. He was a New Yorker, used to the towering glass and steel buildings, brownstones and taxi cabs. Being awake early for a commute was something he was used to, even after five years away from home. Pre-dawn light wasn't new, but the quiet…that was the strange part. Toronto was never one for quiet.

"Why be quiet when there are so many songs to sing out there?" He asked himself. "There's one out there for anything you could possibly think of."

Thoughts of his fathers telling him about the songs they did together in high school flew through his mind. That dinosaur _Teenage Dream_ still echoed about the brownstone in Manhattan twice a year; Poppa wandered the house misty-eyed, telling anyone who would listen about the day on the stairs, the day they first kissed, the day they finally got married. _Somewhere Only We Know_ made its rounds every year too. Toronto tried really hard to call home on those days. He didn't want to _be_ there—he _couldn't_ be there, but he could call.

He stood for another minute, watching a gull fly low over the water. As it gained altitude, breakfast secure in its beak, Toronto began humming. Softly, careful not to break the quiet around him; Poppa was just down the shore, taking in the sunrise.

"If there was any song to sing today, it'd be that one—Pomp and Circumstance. It's a big day, dad. I was worried it wasn't ever gonna get here, you know? Those science classes were _hard_. But here we are. I'm gonna walk across that stage, get another diploma, and come off ready to work; did you know Shell has marine life researchers making sure their production methods don't mess up ecosystems? That's what I'm gonna be doing. So Liz'll have me to thank next time she eats a piece of sashimi.

"I just…I wish it hadn't taken _that_ for me to get here."

The tide chose that moment to come in, washing over Toronto's bare feet in the rush to get to the High Tide line.

Roaring waves. Rising water. Toronto kept a tight hold on his thoughts as he forced his legs to move into the sea instead of towards dry land. Things were different now. He was strong. Tall—something he definitely hadn't gotten from his father—and a capable swimmer. More than able to save himself should something go wrong. He laughed as the water ran past his calves.

"See, dad? Things change. Used to be I couldn't come within twenty feet of a shoreline. But I'm not anymore."

No. Toronto wasn't fifteen and afraid of water if it came in a container larger than a bathtub. Nor was he ten and worried about the tanks in the Aquarium exploding and covering them in a wall of water. And he wasn't seven, standing on this very beach waiting for the all-clear to get back in the water. He wasn't waiting for his life to change in ways he hadn't been able to fathom.

They already had.

**Work with me on this. I have ideas that involve more chapters; one of them is a variation for the tiny bang (does anyone know if we can write companion fics for the bangs? Or do they have to be stand-alones we build off of once they're published? Because I can totally re-work that…) and the others I have only rough plans for. And I hate myself for those plans. Like, you have no idea.**

**And if you got led here because of an alert you placed on me after KLBS, I'm working on it, I swear to god. It's half done, waiting on me to get smacked with whatever needs to happen next. I've been sitting on this for a while and decided to post the prologue last night. Everything I'm posting that isn't chapter 11 is an attempt to force writer's block to go away.**


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